"Uh, Can You Say 50 and Over?"

California Travel Blog

Like any great road trip, things never start off quite like you plan! I got about 5 hours sleep combined the two nights before and needless to say when the alarm went off at 4am, I wanted to chuck it out the window. I managed to drag my body from bed and get ready, with even a few minutes to spare. 5:23am...my work cell phone rings!?! OMG, it's Jillian. I am not picking them up until around 7am - what on earth is she doing up so early? She wanted to make sure I was up and ready to go....awwww. "Heading out the door I say" as I run downstairs to pack my luggage in the car. Unfortunately, since my hands were full, I didn't close the door behind me. Welcome to my world of mating wild birds now enjoying the use of the downstairs of my home to practice their moves.

Uh, 3 females, 1 weekend......would you expect anything less?

I manage to chase them out the sliding door in the breakfast nook and I'm on my way, only 15 minutes behind schedule.

As with all of California it seems, traffic blows right off the bat! I get out of Sacramento pretty much at a snails pace. I text Jillian that gee, I might be a little late, especially considering it's 6:45 am and I am still 50 miles away! LOL. By this time, I am headed more into the Bay Area and my snail's pace now dropped to a snail on crutches speed! By the time I finally got to Julz exit, it was after 8am. Trying to hurry, I scan the Google Maps directions and head off LEFT on the offramp as directed. 15 minutes later when I realize I made a complete loop and have no clue where on earth I am, I call Julz for the personalized step by step directions.

The snacks needed their own seat too!

Yeah, no, was supposed to go RIGHT off the freeway. Lovely. Jillian apparently had issues finding her apartment as well so I don't feel completely stupid now! After getting back onto the freeway and trying this all over again, I finally arrive. YEAH!

You'd never know that Jillian and I had never met before because it was almost like seeing your best friend that had been away for awhile. Hugs all around and a few more minutes for Jillian to catch New Kids on the Block performing in the rain on some morning show, we were ready to pack the car and get on the road! In true female style, no roadtrip with girls would be complete without ensuring we had more luggage than we could possibly need. And snacks and drinks - that is certainly precious cargo! We figure that poor Jillian will have to suffice with her little spot in the back so we can put the seats down to get to the drinks and munchies.

Cheers to the start of our road trip and the first "drink" of the weekend!!!

We had originally talked about stopping for breakfast around 10am since we would've been on the road at 7am but we were all starved so we opted to try a local San Jose diner to get some grub. Food was really good (sorry Mel, no photos....we were still a big groggy at that point). Would've liked to since it appeared Jillian had enough Feta on her omlette to feed 15 Greek salads! :-) Also probably a good idea we didn't since there would've been a lot of photos of Julz and Jillian texting and me, well, what do I always do - work! I brought my laptop into the restaurant so I could get some stuff done before we had to get going. Jillian got several messages from Jenn79, "Hurry up and get here, I want to see you." I asked Jillian for the use of Jen's magic wand and we'd be there in 5 minutes if I had my way! LOL.

Texting Jenn79..."Yes, we are on our way, we will be there soon!!"

The drive was rather uneventful, traffic seemed to move at a steady pace and we passed the time trying to figure out if there was really such a thing as a cute truck driver on the road. LOL. One thing we did notice was the predominance of people much older than us. The game quickly shifted to let's find someone you own age or younger. Apart from the two carloads of military guys, none of us won that round! :-)

After about 4 1/2 hours, we arrive in Los Angeles and decide to check out the old Pasadena area and kill some time before Joy (pvtjoy) gets home to let us in so we can scramble to get ready for the pre-meet that night. Jillian gets a text from Tracy (tre69) asking for red bulls for her anticipated Jager bombs later in the evening.

Could she be surfing TB for updates!?!?

In the words of Joy, "Holy Frijoles!". After we pick up the red bulls and a few other things, we decide to check out the Arcadia mall for one reason - air conditioning! LOL. There's currently a bit of a heat wave in CA and even the normally cool Bay Area is reaching almost 100 degrees!

We only have an hour or so to kill at this point so you'd think we would race through the mall and see what we could spend money on, right? Nope, we opt to bring the laptops in and play on TB and Facebook for awhile! HA HA. By this time the double shots of Espresso and energy drinks are wearing off so we also grab a quick nutritious snack from McDonalds - Julz and I had chicken nuggets and Jillian had her ice cream. In no time, Joy's calling that she's on her way home.

Killing more time reading TB updates

*Whoo Hoo*

We arrive at Joy's minutes later and it's time....let the TB partying begin!

*NOTE: Remainder of blogs and all 6,784,593 photos of everything from half open eyes to any leaf of lettuce on a plate that graced our table will be posted within the week after we make the return road trip home on Monday* :-)